Other Notable Deaths

OTHER NOTABLE DEATHS

Marilyn Ferguson, whose best-selling book The Aquarian Conspiracy helped establish the New Age movement by tying together its disparate threads, has died.

Ms. Ferguson died Oct. 19 at her home in western Riverside County. She is believed to have died of a heart attack, her son, Eric, told The Los Angeles Times.

The Aquarian Conspiracy, published in 1980, was the first comprehensive analysis of the various unconnected efforts - such as scientists investigating biofeedback, midwives running alternative birthing centers and a Christian evangelist promoting meditation - that would coalesce into the New Age movement.

She cast these activities as a cumulative force seeking to break away from mainstream Western attitudes toward medicine, psychology and spirituality.

"After a dark, violent age, the Piscean, we are entering a millennium of love and light - in the words of the popular song 'The Age of Aquarius,' the time of 'The mind's true liberation,' " Ms. Ferguson wrote in the book.

Fritjof Capra, the New Age figure and physicist who wrote the Tao of Physics, said Ms. Ferguson was a vital figure among those striving to create an alternative consciousness.

"She was a very important coordinator and networker in this whole movement," he told the Times.

She also created the Brain/Mind Bulletin, a New Age journal that she published for 21 years until 1996.